A NASA rover named Spirit has plunged through the
atmosphere of Mars and bounced down upon its rocky surface, beginning
a $US820 million ($A1.09 billion) mission in search
of evidence that the red planet was once
suitable for life, analysing Martian rocks and soil for clues that
could reveal whether the planet was once a warmer, wetter
place.

Should humans be spending millions of dollars on
space exploration when the money could be spent here on
Earth?

This topic is now closed - this is what you said.

Reality Bites

No - you are wrong. I subscribe to nothing of the sort and would happily go head to head with you in an IQ test. I am not stupid - you and your like are the ones that have swallowed a Hollywood production as a real life major event in the history of man. And please refrain from telling what I may or may not do. I only take advice from persons with minds of their own.

P.Arrighi - the moon landings were faked precisely because the USSR was ahead of the US in their space program and the US feared the Russians would get to the moon first

david brent

As an inhabitant of the thrid rock from the sun, I am pleased we have made 'contact' with our closest neighbour. I can't wait for the screaming to start when a little green man is spotted.

PS;- Happy New Year Peoples

Dale

Space exploration is something we need to make proper inroads into. I don't think much of the idea of all memory of this world being wiped out when the sun blows up.An obvious first step is having permanent settlements on the moon, and everybody who's done year 8 science knows Mars has an atmosphere that can be made breathable to humans.Apart from having the vague feeling we're meant to have 'hyperdrive' and interstellar travel by now, the reality is that to survive we'll need to spread to other planets.

Making constructive progress on this is the ultimate long-term plan for the human race, and should be funded as such.

Life on other planets? Do the maths on how many planets there are, how many we can't even see. And why assume the life that almost certainly exists out there is physically like us in terms of biological needs?

Rohan Tolstrup

To David Brendt and Robyn Trundle

Now if only the Russian's had thought of the Moon landing scam first... The history of the world would be so different!

P Arrighi

The way we are going with exploration we could find ourselves with cures to disease's such as AIDS etc...

Exploration created our world as we know it today and why should we stop with the ground we walk on?

The only sad thing is Millions of people in the US work 2-3 jobs just to survive and hearing the money spent is sickening with so many needy people do we choose future or present?

lisa sultana

David Brent: Regretfully you have come under the spell of an expert marketeer. People who believe the moon landings are fake are like people who believe that anybody on Australian Idol is gifted. It's a simple trick - get a large number of stupid and gullible people to each contribute a small amount of money to a small number of much smarter people. Every space program disbeliever that I speak to tells me "but I read in ......" or "I subscribe to ....." or "the people at..... tell me" all of which involve handing money to other people. These people are just victims of cruel people who entertain their silly fantasies. Anybody who promotes such fantasies is just helping the crooks who benefit from this. Please stop.

Reality Bites

Oh Pizza of Justice? to answer your questionWe are born with free willAs individuals .. we control it. Think of it as the face of a coin. The other face of the same coin is responsibilityThus only those who are prepared to accept responsibility for their life and actions can truly appreciate the value of free will. One of the greatest events of the 20th century was the near collapse of the institutions which believed they were there to regulate "free will" from previous times (religious institutions and social conventions)."Free will" is not a contradiction of all things human. It is the essential difference between humans and other creatures who are driven by primal desires to merely perpetuate their species.If you believe we are limited in choices to those presented in the media, then I would suggest you are a not a pizza of the "thin" variety. Try research and personal effort, it is surprising what you can find out about ? however, like in all things, a deal of intuitive skill is required to separate the valuable from the dross.

Col Rouge

Great explorers such as Columbus, Magellan and Cook where hesitantly given the resources to explore the unknown parts of the earth. After hundreds of years many people in the affluent colonies of The Americas and the South Pacific can be grateful that they where given these resources. A day may come when our future generations on Mars may be asked whether resources should be used to explore regions beyond our solar system. Hopefully they will look back to our generation and see our efforts in perpetuating the species.

Anthony Comerford

So, Paul Henry, the number of people in on the moon faking is down from a million to a few hundred

And you don't think that the US government has the money, power or methods to enable a secret to be kept by a few hundred people?

robyn trundle

Like all research and development, the by-product is technological advances to man kind. The technology in our cars of today is far superior to those of a decade or two ago due to research and development in the car racing arena. Space exploration? haw many of you are reading this message via an ISP which more than likely has a network backbone using a satelite uplink? Space exploration has helped us launch satelites into space providing endless telecommincations technologies we take for granted today. Research and exploration is the fundamental ingredient the evolution and advancement of man kind. Compare life on earch as little as 100 years ago and ask yourself how did we get to where we are today!

Chris S

James and Mekk

Why is it that I, who question what I have been fed by the US Government, get called an unintelligent flat earther? And why is it you guys, who unquestioningly believe what you are spoon-fed by the US military-industrial-government machine, who are the smart ones?

robyn trundle

jesus christ!!!! i just read the rest of the feedback on this topic. can anyone be postive for a change and stop ringing the bells of doom?????

Mekk Elek

please please let robyn trundle and david brent be clowns and not serious. otherwise we might have to send couple of rovers over to their place of existence to look for signs of intelligence.

Mekk Elek

Yes I believe this is a good idea, it would be better though if the mission took D Brent and R Trundle along to stop their pessimistic views. If this fails they can always be used as heat shields. I suppose there are people out there that still believe the eath is flat, anyway as for Tang - love it, well worth a million dollars in R&D.

Ps Happy New Year all

James

Hey - bovinity is a deplorably common human trait these days, and it's a hell of a lot of money etc.. But at least it's given us something to talk about for the last oh... 34 years .

Apathetic Poster

Boy. Tough question. I'm 50/50 on this. I think it is totally awesome that we went all the way to another planet to explore the small universe we live in (it surely is small in a few ways). Then on the other hand, the money should be given to help feed the people starving on Earth. Who knows though? Maybe people are starving on Mars too? If so, we can benefit from exploring.